West Palm Beach police responded shortly before 6:30 a.m., and authorities later identified the Dreyfoos bodies as Ted Orama and Christopher Marshall, two custodians who worked at the high school, WPTV reports.
While local officials have named the two dead, they declined to provide more information about the circumstances of their deaths and would not specify if there was any indication of foul play.
"It's an open death investigation," West Palm Beach Police spokesman Capt. David Bernhardt told the local NBC affiliate. "That way we're not limiting to ourselves what type of investigation we are doing. It could turn out to be a homicide investigation later on, it could just be a normal death investigation."
However, sources close to the investigation told The Palm Beach Post that police are searching for another school custodian, 53-year-old Javier Burgos, who is considered a suspect in the deaths.
Palm Beach County School District spokesman Jason Shockley said that no students were on campus when the bodies were discovered, according to The Sun Sentinel. After the police arrived at the school, the area was cordoned off, and a SWAT team investigated the scene.
"Everyone throughout the school district is deeply saddened by the events that transpired today at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts," the Palm Beach County School District said in a statement released to local media. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to workers, family, friends, and community members that have been impacted."
I’d always heard that Brazilians were unusually passive when it comes to politics. My friends lament that theirs is a country where soccer and carnival reign and education languishes. There is a sense that once elected, politicians are indifferent to the demands of the public, irresponsible with their money and unaccountable for their actions.
Paulo Maluf, a former mayor of S?o Paulo (the largest city in Latin America) and governor of S?o Paulo (state), wanted by Interpol for conspiracy to commit grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, is currently serving as a federal deputy (an elected representative to the lower chamber of congress). Fernando Collor de Mello, a former president of Brazil who had resigned and was subsequently impeached on corruption charges and banned from politics for eight years, is currently serving as a senator from the Northeastern state of Alagoas. The Federation of State Industries of S?o Paulo, estimates that about 25 billion dollars (US) are embezzled from government coffers every year. Another S?o Paulo federal deputy, Marco Feliciano, who has made disparaging comments against Africans, gays and women, is the recently elected president of the lower chamber’s Commission on Human Rights and Minorities.
For the World Cup in 2014, the government is spending about $15 billion, much of that for building stadiums that are frequently over budget and behind schedule. Multiple stadiums are located in cities, which will never be able to fill the seats once the tournament ends. In addition, the government canceled or pushed back until after the World Cup many of the promised expansions in public transportation for the tournament, expansions which in most cases are desperately needed. In S?o Paulo, the subway trains are unbearably packed during a rush hour that never seems to end, and the trains come to many frequent unplanned stops.
More troubling, economic growth in the country slowed to a growth rate of 0.9% in 2012, coinciding with a decrease in demand for commodities in China. I couldn’t blame my Brazilian friends for their pessimistic take on politics.
But when the city of S?o Paulo raised subway and bus fares by ten cents to $1.60 (the minimum wage in the state is about 375 dollars per month before taxes), the pent up frustration of the city’s residents appeared to burst, at least by Brazilian standards. Three protests occurred in less than a week starting on the sixth of June, and the last had seen at least 10,000 protestors. There were similar protests in Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre among other cities.
On June 13th, the planned date of the fourth protest, I decided to attend, curious to see what could have brought so many of the seemingly lethargic paulistanos (as inhabitants of the city are called) out into the streets. Was this na?ve idealism, violent delinquency or something else?
It started out like a rally before a soccer game. Protestors on the steps of the theater shouted slogans, others held up banners and posters, a few beat drums and cymbals. I saw children with mothers, university students, blue class workers, punks, card carrying members of various political parties and a few individuals who appeared to be in their fifties or sixties. Everybody was friendly. It felt like a party.
As the march started, residents cheered from their windows and held up signs of support, a few even tossed white confetti out of their offices. The protestors chanted, “S?o Paulo has awoken.” A few smiling individuals turned around to take pictures with their phones of the mass of people advancing behind them.
I never saw anyone with stones or Molotov cocktails, although I did occasionally detect a whiff of freshly drying spray paint. In general I noticed few acts of destruction. Protestors shouted down an individual who threw a glass bottle on the ground. I did notice many people with flowers and cameras though.
As the protestors headed up a street, they stopped near a gas station. I saw a young man in a yellow shirt talking to a colonel of the military police surrounded by the press. I would later learn that the young man was explaining to the colonel the route of the rest of the protest. The colonel congratulated him on the peacefulness of the protest, and asked the protestors to break for a short time.
About fifteen minutes later, I heard shots fired. The police were using tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and smoke bombs. I couldn’t understand what had happened.
Chaos ensued. Panicking protestors ran in all directions. A few shouted to stick together: smaller groups would make easier targets for the police. Many started to chant “No violence!” My wife and I followed a large group up another street until we noticed a formation of heavily armored and masked policeman coming in the opposite direction. Bar and restaurant owners scrambled to close their doors. We turned. A canister landed not far from us. We headed up an apparently empty street only to encounter more police. Turning back and cutting across streets, we finally managed to reach a metro stop and catch a train away from the action. Others weren’t so lucky.
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